


11:  Red-Lined

by light_source



Series: High Heat [11]
Category: Baseball RPF, Sports RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-24
Updated: 2011-07-24
Packaged: 2017-10-21 17:05:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/light_source/pseuds/light_source
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You’re kidding yourself if you think you can stay there, be safe there, tonight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	11:  Red-Lined

As they drive back to where Tim’s truck is still parked at AT&T, through the exhausted projects of Bayview and along the industrial Third Street corridor, they’re both silent. Tim’s grateful that Zito’s turned up the stereo and they’re letting Bassnectar, some awful dubstep shit Wilson’s given him, blast them into near-oblivion.

You can’t just kiss someone in a parking lot, Tim reflects, and then go back to being your regular self. It’s like kicking in a door, and then trying to lock it behind yourself later. When the doorjamb’s in splinters, you’re kidding yourself if you think you can stay there, be safe there, tonight.

Yeah, there’s a part of him that was going _yes_ and _oh god_ and _don’t stop_ \- the part of him that hasn’t gotten laid since he left Seattle. So much for the hot life of the big-leaguer, he thinks; except for bro-hugs and butt slaps, no one’s touched him since February.

The guys have been good, they’ve set him up with girls, but he’s just not into that scene. Drunk sex, and sneaking down hotel hallways in the middle of the night, and worst of all, waking up with a stranger. Doesn’t matter how horny he is, he needs to be able to wake up the next morning with whoever he’s fucked and actually want to talk to them.

The bottom line is that he’ll be twenty-three next week, and outside of baseball he has no life.

But he’s not ready for - shit, he’s not even really hot for - the hundred-and-twenty-six-million-dollar man. Tim may not be that experienced, but he’s got an instinct about what to stay clear of. And Zito’s totally red-lined, for reasons that are well-known even if they’re not really talked about, inside or outside the clubhouse.

So by the time they get to the players’ parking lot, Tim’s considering basically three possibilities.

_\- I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me._

_\- Let’s just pretend this didn’t happen._

_\- Will you please come back to my place and fuck my brains out?_

//

Zito keeps his eyes on the road. In the flashes of light from the streetlights, his face is mysteriously blank, as though he’s no more than relaxed, tired after a long day.

What Tim doesn’t realize is that Zito’s been kissed just as passionately before this, and by less likely people, in even less likely places. Tim might be surprised - and a little disappointed - to learn that, right now, Zito’s not thinking about him at all.

//

When Zito pulls into the parking lot and swerves neatly into the space next to his truck, Lincecum’s already got one hand on the door handle. But when he pulls up on it, nothing happens; the doors have locked automatically. He punches, frustrated, at the buttons on the armrest until he gets a click.

Zito reaches over and touches his shoulder, a gesture that’s nothing more than friendly.

\- Thanks, Barry says.

\- For what? says Tim, too quickly. He wishes he could take it back.

\- I’m not sure, says Zito wearily. - Does it matter?

Barry sighs. He puts his hands to his face and rubs his eyes, and then his temples, as though trying to soothe a headache. He glances down reflectively for a moment, and then his eyes flicker up, and meet Tim’s.

And then, caught up in the same crazy impulse, they lean towards each other over the gearshift console. Barry’s hand reaches up to touch Tim’s neck, and their mouths meet again, and their tongues, and it’s good, so good. This time Tim’s eyes are closed. He’s reveling in how it feels, the longing coursing through him, but he’s also afraid. Afraid of what he might see in Barry’s eyes; afraid of losing himself in this feeling he doesn’t trust at all.

//

It's a five-minute drive to Tim's place in Potrero Hill. It's a studio over a corner mom-and-pop store, month-to-month till he finds something permanent. What's San Francisco about it is that somebody’s painted a psychedelic blue-mushroom-hallucination mural below the window. But the neighborhood, in the shade of both freeways, is old-fashioned and conservative, the kind of place where people wash the sidewalks in front of their houses.

As the rickety door slaps shut behind them, Tim flips the switch on the thermostat and tosses his gym bag on the floor. The big high-ceilinged room smells faintly of varnish and old cigarette smoke. The only light comes from a streetlight outside the uncurtained front window until Tim switches on a gooseneck lamp, head twisted up, on the floor next to the bed. The floors are bare wood, and cold seeps through the windows and under the door.

There’s a mattress, a blinking MacBook propped on top of a suitcase, and an alarm clock. Against the wall is a stack of cardboard boxes, their corners blunted from transit, still sealed with movers’ tape.

\- I haven’t been warm since I got to this fucking city, says Tim, tenting his hands and blowing into them.

And yet, with a single motion, he peels his shirt and sweatshirt over his head and tosses the bundle onto the floor.

Zito’s already taken off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. Now, as he struggles to work the leather of his belt free from the buckle - his hands, amazing, are shaking - Lincecum takes over, whipping the belt through the loops, shimmying Zito’s jeans from his hips, stripping off his oxford shirt. Then he runs his hands up Barry’s bare arms and, with his wet, hot mouth, kisses his collarbone, his throat, the corner of his jaw, just below his ear.

\- Your nose’s freezing, Barry murmurs, leaning into the warmth of Tim’s lips on his skin.

Barry’s head has been tilted back, his eyes half-closed in pleasure, so when Tim pulls away a little abruptly, he comes back to attention only reluctantly, running his tongue along his upper lip as he gazes, astonished, at the man in front of him.

Tim’s eyes are narrowed and Barry can hear his breath coming hard and fast. He’s naked from the waist up, and his skin’s goosefleshed with the cold, his nipples hard.

Zito takes Tim’s left hand in both of his and slowly unbuckles the leather band of his wristwatch. As Tim watches him, Zito slips the sterling rings from Tim’s index finger and thumb and drops them onto the pile of clothes they’ve shed.

Then, with a single movement, he tugs open the rivet fly of Tim’s jeans. He covers Tim’s mouth with his own and then eases both hands around Tim’s waist and under the elastic of his briefs to take into both hands the curve of that ass he’s been dreaming about. Tim leans his head back, arches his back and sucks in his breath. Together, hands touching, tongues intertwined, they slowly work Tim’s jeans and underwear down to the floor.

As the radiators finally begin to crank out some warmth, they collapse onto Tim’s bed, a rat’s nest of sheets and pillows that’s never been made. Tim reaches down to the foot of the bed for the duvet and pulls it up over them, but Barry kicks it aside.

Later, what Tim remembers about this night is how slowly it unfolds.

Tim’s on his back, and Barry, propped on an elbow, leans in to kiss him languorously, his tongue in Tim’s mouth following the rhythm of his hand, which skims over Tim’s body, stroking his skin, as though Barry is a blind man discovering the landscape of his lover’s body for the first time. Tim closes his eyes and swallows hard as every part of him - his thighs, his cock, his belly, his nipples, his throat - rises up to the feel of that touch.


End file.
